This book contains the very essence of the Principle of Expression. Had I cared to, I could have expanded it into a book of several hundred pages but such expansion would have defeated the purpose of this book.
Commands to be effective – must be short and to the point: the greatest command ever recorded is found in the few simple words, “And God said, ‘Let there be light.’”
In keeping with this principle I now give to you, the reader, in these few pages, the truth as it was revealed to me.
Neville

Man's Faith In God Is Measured By His Confidence In Himself.

In the beginning was the unconditioned awareness of being, and the unconditioned awareness of being became conditioned by imagining itself to be something, and the unconditioned awareness of being became that which it had imagined itself to be; so did creation begin.
By this law-first conceiving, then becoming that conceived-all things evolve out of No-thing; and without this sequence there is not anything made that is made.

Neville

This book is concerned with the art of realizing your desire. It gives you an account of the mechanism used in the production of the visible world. It is a small book but not slight. There is a treasure in it, a clearly defined road to the realization of your dreams.

Were it possible to carry conviction to another by means of reasoned arguments and detailed instances, this book would be many times its size. It is seldom possible, however, to do so by means of written statements or arguments since to the suspended judgment it always seems plausible to say that the author was dishonest or deluded, and, therefore, his evidence was tainted. Consequently, I have purposely omitted all arguments and testimonials, and simply challenge the open-minded reader to practice the law of consciousness as revealed in this book. Personal success will prove far more convincing than all the books that could be written on the subject.

Neville

Prayer is the master key. A key may fit one door of a house, but when it fits all doors it may well claim to be a master key. Such and no less a key is prayer to all earthly problems.

This book is an attempt to reduce the unknown to the known, by pointing out the conditions on which prayers are answered, and without which they cannot be answered. It defines the conditions governing prayer in laws that are simply a generalization of our observations.

Neville

My object in writing these pages is to indicate possibilities inherent in man, to show that man can alter his future; but, thus altered, it forms again a deterministic sequence starting from the point of interference—a future that will be consistent with the alteration. The most remarkable feature of man's future is its flexibility. It is determined by his attitudes rather than by his acts. The cornerstone on which all things are based is man's concept of himself. He acts as he does and has the experiences that he does, because his concept of himself is what it is, and for no other reason. Had he a different concept of self, he would act differently. A change of concept of self automatically alters his future: and a change in any term of his future series of experiences reciprocally alters his concept of self. Man's assumptions which he regards as insignificant produce effects that are considerable; therefore man should revise his estimate of an assumption, and recognize its creative power.

Neville

Neville explained that the ark of life contained and could be understood on three levels: the literal, psychological and spiritual. The lectures which are available deal mainly with the spiritual. However, because those who are now hearing his words on tapes and reading his lectures, did not hear him speak on the second (or psychological) level, I realized the need to provide that psychological plane as a foundation for the higher, spiritual level. And so, the thought was planted in my mind. What if there were some lectures that taught this principle on a practical level? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if such a series could be found and made available for those who would desire it. And then one day I received a letter from a lovely lady in San Francisco who said she was moving into a retirement home and wanted to send me some notes she had from Neville’s lecture series in San Francisco in 1952. These notes constitute this book.

Margaret Ruth Broome

Forty years ago Neville added notes in his own hand to his personal copy of the newly published Power of Awareness. In conveying this copy to DeVorss & Company for the purpose of a new printing , Neville 's daughter , Victoria Goddard , has both authenticated the handwriting as her father's and authorized the publication of a new edition incorporating his notes. Of these additions there are no fewer than twenty, ranging in length from several lines to the substitution of a single word for another. This latter , however , brief as it is, confers a significant change on the meaning of the text. Indeed , Neville's notes everywhere clarify his meaning and in places convey important insights and guidance -so much so that in his very next work, Awakened Imagination , he would incorporate some of them.

ARTHUR VERGARA - Editor
Leave the mirror and change your face.
Leave the world alone and change your conceptions of yourself.
Neville

I know of no greater and truer definition of the Imagination than that of Blake. By imagination we have the power to be anything we desire to be. Through imagination we disarm and transform the violence of the world. Our most intimate as well as our most casual relationships become imaginative as we awaken to "the mystery hid from the ages," that Christ in us is our imagination. We then realize that only as we live by imagination can we truly be said to live at all.
I want this book to be the simplest, clearest, frankest work I have the power to make it, that I may encourage you to function imaginatively, that you may open your "Immortal Eyes inwards into the Worlds of Thought," where you behold every desire of your heart as ripe grain "white already to harvest."
Neville

In the following essays I have tried to indicate certain ways of approach to the understanding of the Bible and the realization of your dreams. Many who enjoy the old familiar verses of Scripture are discouraged when they themselves try to read the Bible as they would any other book because, quite excusably, they do not understand that the Bible is written in the language of symbolism. Not knowing that all of its characters are personifications of the laws and functions of mind; that the Bible is psychology rather than history, they puzzle their brains over it for awhile and then give up. It is all too mystifying. To understand the significance of its imagery, the reader of the Bible must be imaginatively awake. The purpose of this book, however, is not to give you a complete definition of Biblical symbols or exhaustive interpretations of its stories. All I hope to have done is to have indicated the way in which you are most likely to succeed in realizing your desires. "What things soever ye desire" can be obtained only through the conscious, voluntary exercise of imagination in direct obedience to the laws of Mind. Somewhere within this realm of imagination there is a mood, a feeling of the wish fulfilled which, if appropriated, means success to you. This realm, this Eden - your imagination - is vaster than you know and repays exploration. "I Give you the end of a golden string;" You must wind it into a ball.

Neville

"Man is all Imagination. God is Man and exists in us and we in Him . . . The Eternal Body of Man is the Imagination, that is, God, Himself" —Blake
The purpose of the first portion of this book is to show, through actual true stories, how imagining creates reality. Science progresses by way of hypotheses tentatively tested and afterwards accepted or rejected according to the facts of experience. The claim that imagining creates reality needs no more consideration than is allowed by science. It proves itself in performance. The world in which we live is a world of imagination. In fact, life itself is an activity of imagining, "For Blake," wrote Professor Morrison of the University of St. Andrews, "the world originates in a divine activity identical with what we know ourselves as the activity of imagination;" his task being "to open the immortal eyes of man inward into the worlds of thought, into eternity, ever expanding in the bosom of God, the Human Imagination."

Neville

Public opinion will not long endure a theory which does not work in practice. Today, probably more than ever before, man demands proof of the truth of even his highest ideal. For ultimate satisfaction man just find a principle which is for him a way of life, a principle which he can experience as true.
I believe I have discovered just such a principle in the greatest of all sacred writings, the Bible. Drawn from my own mystical illumination this book reveals the truth buried within the stories of the old and new testaments alike.
Briefly, the book states that consciousness is the one and only reality, that consciousness is the cause and manifestation is the effect.
It draws the reader’s attention to this fact constantly, that the reader may always keep first things first. Having laid the foundation that a change of consciousness is essential to bring about any change of expression, this book explains to the reader a dozen different ways to bring about such a change of consciousness.
This is a realistic and constructive principle that works. The revelation it contains, if applied, will set you free.
- Neville